If you go down to the woods today......

If you go down to the woods today.....you'll find sloe berries ready to make your sloe gin for Christmas.  Slurp. Hic.

My friend Hannah and I went out today armed with plastic bags and Tupperware boxes to collect as many of the berries as we could. Hannah is very knowledgeable about forageable things and had seen these berries a few weeks ago in a wood near her house.   Last year, I bought some preserving bottles ready to make the drink but I didn't know where to look for the berries. B I G thanks to Hannah for sourcing them!

These ones are a cross between sloes and plums but we also collected some smaller pure sloes. 

Ouch! The hawthorn was a bit prickly!!

I've got to prick the berries with a cocktail stick before placing them in the freezer.  Then, after a few days, I'll be able to add the sloes to the gin with some sugar and then patiently wait til it has been flavoured.  The gin should make some lovely Christmas pressies.

It was so lovely to walk and talk and catch up on each other's news.

We sat and marvelled at the autumnal colours and found lots to interest us.

I've known Hannah for practically my whole life, she's older (and wiser!) than me by only 2 days and we've been as close as can be and then far apart, but through it all we've turned out to be pretty similar in both personality and interests.  We both have a love of simplicity, nature, crafting, homemade items, quilting, preserving and baking to name but a few. When we became best friends at school (aged around 7 I think?) we used to sit in the playground sewing together and it's such a joy that decades on that friendship has lasted and that we're still creating together. 

Friendship is a beautiful thing.